Love
by Everlane
Summary: At that moment, I realized that I couldn't see that person people hated, and there was no need for me to see her.


**Love**

* * *

Our stay on the mountain wasn't as long as we wanted.

Somehow as a baby I had sensed that beyond the great plains, the mountain born trees sloping onwards, the fire lilies blooming, and the wide cropped fields was a place my mother didn't want to venture into.

For as long as I've known her, mother kept to herself. She wasn't a lonely person, but someone who felt that her loneliness was an accepted and bearable fate.

She was quiet for the most part. Her playfulness only emerged whenever she was around us and only us. She was not a bad mother.

She raised us by herself for eight years on that place. My memories held nothing dark. Thinking of those days always made me warm and giddy all over with joy. Thinking of the mountain top was like dreaming of paradise.

I always felt that I needed to comfort my mother and help her in any way that I can. I always wanted to wipe her hidden tears and kiss her cheeks. Hug her when she would read in the small study room by herself.

But she wasn't the kind of person you could do those things for. She would gently push you away.

Before we left for the palanquin outside, I remembered my mother neatly folding the remaining articles of our clothing. My brothers were outside, and the sun was bright. I could only see her back, but I knew she had been crying, and knew that everything was going to change.

I crept up and hugged her side. She patted my head while I was comforted by her sweet yet earthy scent in the hollow of her neck. She kissed my forehead and murmured, "Mingmei?"

"Yes mother?"

"Always remember that I love all of you. Do you understand?"

"...Yes."

* * *

My mother always spoke about my father as if he were a hero in a fairytale. And you might see it fitting to call him that, because my father was a hero. He was on most books, and many laws were set up because of him. My mother said he was a leader of the Southern Water Tribe. He was loud, brash, brave, and had the most beautiful blue eyes.

Because I took after him, my mother was especially fond of me. The somewhat darker skin I felt uncomfortable with and my blue eyes were beautiful to her. She always chided me for my insecurities even when I felt little compared to her.

Mother once said that she couldn't remember when she met my father. A few months after that, she said that she swore she met him on a desert or perhaps by a lake. Either way she hadn't paid much attention to him.

They weren't friends. It took a while before they managed to stay in one room together and share a conversation. Mother told me that my father was fascinated by the fact that she was so independent and knowledgeable about most things. He was one of the only boys who actually liked a woman like her.

She said that they became good companions, but not friends. "Back then, it wasn't normal for people like us to be friends, so we had to be careful around each other."

Nevertheless, my mother and father discovered that it was impossible to keep their distance. Someone like father could grow on you. Mother soon couldn't help but feel the loss when father at times would not hug her, kiss her on the cheek, or gaze at her when she secretly noticed. She mentioned that she did well in hiding them, whereas father made it known that he was ready to have her if she would take him.

Their fate was inevitable.

So my father boldly began to hold my mother's hand in would speak to her as if she were his long lost friend. He would say things to make her forget her troubles. Anything to keep her happy and safe.

It wasn't long until mother had to face separating from him for seven months. She said that because he was a politician, he had to travel a lot. Letters were the only thing that kept them bound. On scrolls of parchment, their friendship changed to a love far deeper than any beyond.

On a wide plain under falling snow in the Southern Water Tribe, my father showed her the betrothal necklace he carved and my mother immediately accepted his proposal.

Mother said that she never seen anyone that happy and had never felt more happier. So under the snow, they sat and spent the rest of that day watching the thrashing seas. I figured out later that they probably did a bit more than that, since Bo was born a bit too early for a robust baby boy.

Mother said that a lot of people weren't elated about the engagement. For the most part, she was vague about the people who did not like her. She never explained why they didn't, but only mentioned them when she felt that she couldn't avoid them. After all, they were why everything had changed later on.

The wedding was small and no one attended. My mother became the first foreigner to become wife to the Southern Tribe chieftain. Amidst hostile glares and harsh whispers, Bo was born on a snowy morning in the Southern Water Tribe months later.

Bo and Kohaku always told me that father was especially fond of me the most. I was born on a spring morning in the Earth Kingdom. My birth was sudden. No one expected me to come out weeks early. Father was at a meeting, my mother said. His surprise when he came home was me in a bundle.

I don't remember his face, but I always knew that the blurry tall and boisterous man who carried me over his shoulders and kissed my cheeks just for the heck of it was my father. I still remember his scent. A nice musky and clean scent. His voice was deep. I even remember the rough patch it took when he got sick once. His name for me was princess, and when he used Mingmei, he would call me Mimi. I still remember him, even more so than my brothers.

Mother said that it was difficult for my father the last months before he passed away. A war had just ended and people still wanted it to continue. Because she was his wife, she and we were the prime target of assassins. His death was so sudden that for two weeks, my mother couldn't speak.

No one knew what exactly happen, and I guess that was what hurt her the most. I suspect that it still does. My father went on another trip. He went alone because the dangers around us grew and he decided to make us stay behind. He never came back. He was caught in an ambush. Up till this day, my mother is still convinced that someone set him up.

Everyone blamed her for his death. Mother said that it was easy for them to do so. She didn't talk about what happened before we left. She spoke in riddles mostly around that time. But I figured that with my father gone, avoiding danger proved difficult.

I was only ten days shy of being four when we left the tribe. Bo was eight and Kohaku had just turned six. Bo took father's death the hardest. He took after him in mind, even though he was the spitting image of mother. He was the loud and boisterous one, but after father's death, he developed a temper that eerily reminded my mother of our grandfather on her side.

Bo changed. He wasn't the model son. Along with his harsh features, he became unpredictable. Mother had to pay close attention to him while we were on the mountain top. I believe that if it weren't for that, and the peace the mountains exuded, or maybe the spirit of our father that watched over us, Bo wouldn't have turned out the way he did.

Kohaku was the gentle soul. He was deeply saddened and he refused to eat the first few days when father died. He didn't fight as much as Bo did unless you provoked him. 'Koko' had father's dry sense of humor, even though he inherited his looks from my mother.

I hadn't realized something terrible had happened, but I noticed no one was themselves and it had to do with papa being away for so long. I asked about him for nine months, before I seemed to accept that he was never coming back. I was the only one who didn't cry.

Mother had her arms around my shoulders in the palanquin on our way to the docks to travel. The men who took us away had stared at us as if we weren't real people, and I hated it. They couldn't look at Bo, because Bo reminded them...everyone of grandfather too much. Mother told me that grandfather wasn't a well liked man. There were still people who were afraid of him. Bo had grandfather's eyes, and the way his twisted his face was just like him.

When Bo got angry, his eyes always took on a turn. He would look at you as if you were the lowest thing on earth, even though he's just angry. His eyes were an intense gold. Even as a boy, you'd look into those eyes and see that man who seemed to possess him.

Bo never realized that he had this effect on people, and he didn't care. The only people he cared about that stuff for was us, and for that alone, I was grateful. Once we boarded the ship that looked better than the others, mother had us stuck to her side.

I didn't mind because people were still staring at us like that. Our sail on that ship was uncomfortable, but I grew used to the stares and avoided the people. Mother told me that I shouldn't talk to even the good ones. People weren't always who they seem.

We were given a single room with all of us inside. For the months it took to get to the Fire Nation, we indulged in many bedtime stories and silent but true promises from mother.

Our arrival in the Fire Nation was disconcerting. We came in the wee hours of the morning. We were hurriedly taken on another palanquin to Capital City, which was eerily silent. I gazed over at the numerous buildings. The staleness of the air wasn't like the one on the mountain. I didn't want to be in the Fire Nation. No one did.

"Your uncle has already selected your teachers for your studies." Mother said on the palanquin, her eyes on my brothers while she kept me in her arms.

"Why can't we just read books and study with you?" Kohaku asked.

Mother smiled. "It's required that you all become students, and I'm not a registered tutor."

"Then be registered." Bo muttered as he looked out, arms folded and scowl subtle. "I'm not going to get a tutor or go to school. I'd rather get a library to study in."

"Bo…"

"No." Bo said agitatedly. "I don't even understand why we had to come all the way to this shitty place."

"There's no need for that language."

"Well there will be. You of all people know that this isn't the place for us, yet you decided to string us along here.

I know it wasn't because you wanted us to have a different view of the world. The reason why we all have to come here is because someone discovered us in the mountains and we weren't safe after that."

Mother said nothing. She always did, but not because she was meek. Mother was far from that. When it came to Bo's anger, it heightened despite what you did. If you spoke, it only escalated. You had to watch him carefully and wait the moment he let his guard down to speak to him. With mother and I along with Kohaku, he would always listen. But I learned later on after several of Bo's fights that Bo could care less about anyone else.

At sixteen, Bo was frighteningly tall and brawny. Mother called him her bear lion because Bo reminded her of one. When we met uncle Zuko, he was stunned by Bo the most because Bo was an energetic little baby the last time he met him. Now Bo had changed drastically.

I would always love uncle as if he were my father because he was the first smiling face I saw. He didn't look at me like the others did. He had hugged me tightly as if I would disappear if he let go. His first words to me were that I was beautiful like my mother and reminded him of the bright moon flowers in his gardens.

The scar on his face couldn't make his look less handsome. From then on, I was the daughter he never had. But even when things started to seem like they were getting better like the morning sun that began to rise, I noted the dark look on my mother's face.

This was the first time I saw her this way. She was standing back. Catching my gaze, she smiled but I could tell that it wasn't her true one. I know her real smile because her eyes always twinkled. This time it was strained.

I remembered the men who carried the palanquin. The guards who surrounded the courtyard. Three servants who stood at the front of the palace. They all stared at my mother as if she had no place there. I thought it was because of my father, but it took Bo's glare at them to realize that it was something else.

* * *

The only history I knew of my mother were with my father. She had no remnants of her past life except for a portrait of him and her betrothal necklace. Her past life was nonexistent, a blank slate tucked in a dark hole.

I remembered asking my mother about what she used to do as a child. She would tell me things that were true, but I could always tell that there was another side to the story. Like when she used to climb trees with her friends, but left out the part where she had once pushed her friend once they got down because her friend reached the ground first.

And then a time when she helped a bully see the error of his ways by tell him to stop, never mentioning that she did that first and then burnt his eye.

Mother to me was a gentle soul. She was strong, a caregiver, and a kind woman. But I've always felt that there was something else to her. It was dark and and terrifying.

It started when uncle began to show us around Capital City, the home of the Fire Palace. Most times, mother would go with us. She would indulge me in talk, deliberately distracting me from the people who still gave us that look. On that morning, uncle brought Bo, Kohaku, and I to the throne room to attend a meeting.

Mother did not attend the meeting with us. She came down with a fever and was still asleep.

I wonder if she would have tried not to make us go that morning.

"Firelord, if I may have a word?"

"Yes."

"Is that your niece?" The man with the long goatee had said with a small frown. "The daughter of the former South Water Tribe chieftain?"

It was all a blur. Bo had asked the man why he needed to know so badly. One moment, the man gave me that look again and the next, we were practically dubbed the unnecessary peasants who didn't need to be here, since our mother might have conditioned us to spy for her.

Before my uncle reacted, Bo was the one who surged through the double line of political officials. The meeting didn't end well. General Han was given two black eyes, sported three broken ribs, and had a first deadly impression of my brother.

"Why would they say that to you mommy?" I cried in my mother's arms. "I wanna go home. I don't wanna stay here. I'm sick and tired of people acting as if you did something bad to them!"

"Mimi…" Kohaku began.

Crying didn't do anything to wade off the many events like the first one. People started to say names. They called her the banished princess even though she was still legally a princess. One person called her a whore, to which she couldn't do anything about because the person was in a crowd. When a maid decided to spit in her face, it was me who punched her.

I grew angrier not because this was happening, but because my mother didn't do anything about it. It was always ignore them this and ignore them that. I was thirteen the first time Bo had another episode. He was shouting at her, and uncle tried to calm him down.

On that day, he got into another fight with one of the nobles' son. We saw him sitting in the gardens, the side of his face covered with a large bruise.

"What I don't get is why? Why do you have to prove something to these people?" Bo started.

My mother just stared at him.

"Jian said that you took over a fucking city. You were like some legend and now you're here."

The fountain continued to run, water spilling out from its confines onto a small puddle in the middle of the gardens. "Did you ever think that maybe we just don't care if you were that person! Did you even think that we just don't give a damn about those people!"

"Don't you dare say that to me."

Bo looked startled, but pushed on, "Did it ever occur to you all that I could care less about what others think about us?"

"I have no interested in them. I have my children and my peace of mind. That is all that matters to me."

"Mom…"

"Stop it!" she screamed. "From now on, I don't want to see you fighting them again. Try to think before you act!"

Stunned silence. I couldn't speak, and neither did Bo or Kohaku. Mother angry like this was a rare sight. It was like looking at another person. Mother was crying when she turned away. Her shoulders shook. Bo was the one who first hugged her from behind. Kohaku followed. I happened to be last.

We stayed like that for a little bit.

When I was tucked in bed late at night, I held onto my mother's arm before she left ot her own quarters. Through instinct, she slipped back into the bed with me, stroking my hair.

"Can you tell me about when you were younger?"

A sigh.

"Alright."

* * *

It was the morning after the incident. I thought deeply in my room of the life I had to live from now on. Most children would still be frustrated. But that's why I'm my mother's daughter. I thought carefully about things. Analyzed them.

I still had these thoughts running through my head when I rushed down the corridors. Past the servants milling about. Past the dining area and the corridor leading to the gardens. I saw my mother by the gardens. Her black hair falling past her shoulders. She was wearing a crimson tunic, and her bare feet grazed the puddle.

"Mother?"

She slowly turned. I gazed at the way her eyes lit up and how her expression lifted in surprise.

"Yes?"

It's exactly as they sometimes say. In a moment of rebirth, the world you lived in was reborn. It was frightening but also calming. You understood the world you lived in on a deeper scale. I believe that was what happened when I found my mother to tell her that it didn't matter.

The woman who kissed my wounds before wrapping them up, the woman who would tell me all the stories in the world under my request. The woman who made my favorite cake especially when I was sick. The woman who gave birth to me. At that moment, I realized that I couldn't see that person people hated, and there was no need for me to see her.

I rushed to her. By instinct, she had her arms open in time for me to fall in them. I held her tightly, as if I was afraid she'd disappear again.

"You'll always be mom to me." I muttered.

A nod over my head. "Thank you, my princess."

We held on to each other a bit more.

"Will you come and feed the turtleducks with me?"

A smile lit up my face. "Yeah."


End file.
